Teaser got me rock hard. I was really nervous watching the behind the scenes shit cause it looked really cheesy and low budget during production but from what I saw in the teaser it was almost spot on to how I imagined it. I always imagined the White Walkers a little more whispy, less like the Predator and I always assumed that the entirety of Winterfell and everything north of it to the Wall was thick woods or dead woods, so the green hills during the deserter scene seemed a bit off, but it was still cool.

.....
At this point, if you've gotten this far, you're probably wondering whether you should watch this show or not. Yes, you should watch it. You'll know within the first few episodes whether it's for you, and if you stick with the drama through the middle of the season, you may find the tale growing on you.

At this stage, 'Game of Thrones' is not everything it could be, and if there are future seasons, the producers will have to be much more bold if they don't want their version of Martin's ever-expanding tale to become unwieldy, but there are several things to recommend HBO's rendition of the story, most notably the cast and many of the visuals. If nothing else, it's going to look great in HDTV.

For the Metacritic devotees among you, here's how I'd rate the first six episodes (each score is out of 100): episode 1: 80; episode 2: 50 (not the show's finest hour by a long shot); episode 3: 60 (mainly due to the final scene); episode 4: 70 (mainly due to the terrific Wall scenes); episode 5: 90 (exceptional work by the cast, excellent writing); episode 6: 70.

The show's clever and informative opening credits get a score of 100. I hope to write more on that later.

Stefani Sadler wrote:i'm approaching this as i do with any visual incarnation of the dune novels: with severe trepidation and irrationally low expectations.

That's probably smart. Most reviews of the first 6 episodes have been overwhelmingly fantastic. The review you posted has some great observations and I'm not going to dismiss it just because I don't want it to be true. But in the comments on that review it's pointed out that the reviewer is sort of an Armand White for TV, a contrarian who just rated Camelot as almost as good as Game of Thrones (and I've seen Camelot and it's fucking awful). But...we'll see...tonight. The book took awhile to warm up, for me, so I imagine the show will too; it has a lot of ground to cover. That reviewer loved the Wall scenes, and I didn't care for those in the book, so maybe I'll find a new appreciation for certain things. With the critical reviews out so far, this won't suck. But how hard will it rule? Popcorn and curious boners, tonight!